Learntrail: Tech Partner Spotlight

We invite each of our featured SoftLayer Tech Marketplace Partners to contribute a guest post to the SoftLayer Blog, and this week, we're happy to welcome Daniel Hamilton, CTO of Learntrail. Learntrail is a learning management system for creating, assigning, and tracking e-learning programs. It helps you train your employees and develop a more effective workforce.

The Power of Great People

In 1995, Peter Drucker, one of the founding fathers of modern-day management, shared a profoundly simple idea: "People are our greatest asset." Today, almost two decades later, that quote is reiterated in one form or another by the top executives at the largest companies in the world. You can have the best product, a stellar marketing plan and the perfect vision, but without a great team of people to execute with those tools, your company isn't going anywhere.

In an online world now driven by innovation, it's easy to want to substitute "technology" for "people" as a business's greatest asset, but I'd argue that Peter Drucker's quote is as true now as it was in 1995. Think about it in terms of keeping your webiste online. Your server's hardware — a powerful CPU, ample storage space, tons of RAM and a fast network connection — might dictate how your website runs when everything is going smoothly, but when your traffic spikes over the holidays or an article on your blog goes viral, your ability to respond quickly to keep your website operational will be dictated by the quality of your server admins and support staff.

While good companies focus on improving their products, great companies focus on improving their people. In 2010, Google approached the challenge of improving its people by creating GoogleEDU — a program designed to formalize the process of educating employees in new skills, strategies and perspectives. Beyond building a stronger team of smarter individuals, Google is clearly investing in its employees, and that investment goes a long way to engender loyalty and job satisfaction.

What if your business doesn't happen to have Google's resources or a $269 billion market cap? That's the problem Learntrail set out to solve. Our platform was designed to make it easy for businesses to create stunning, full-featured multimedia courses that can be monitored and tracked in detail with a few clicks.

You can bring your new-hire orientation program online, centralize training documents for new products, or create simple lessons about company-specific procedures through a sleek, easy-to-use portal. You’ll also get real-time reports about your team’s progress, so you'll know exactly how your training is being used by your employees. To prove how confident we are that Learntrail will meet your needs, we have a risk-free, no credit card required 14-day trial that lets you kick the tires and get a feel for how Learntrail can work for your business.

This guest blog series highlights companies in SoftLayer's Technology Partners Marketplace. These Partners have built their businesses on the SoftLayer Platform, and we're excited for them to tell their stories. New Partners will be added to the Marketplace each month, so stay tuned for many more come.